We've just seen some amazing reports from the Washington Post about just a few ways NSA is tracking people around the Internet and the physical world. These newly-revealed techniques hijacked personal information that was being transmitted for some commercial purpose, converting it into a tool for surveillance. One technique involved web cookies, while another involved mobile apps disclosing their location to location-based services.

Yesterday, we learned that the NSA is using Google cookies—the same cookies used for advertisements and search preferences—to track users for surveillance purposes.

These Google cookies—known as “PREF” cookies—last two years and can uniquely identify you. Sniffing one off the Internet as it goes past allows the NSA to recognize your browser whenever you interact with Google from any location or network. Every person who visits a Google site will receive a PREF cookie, regardless of whether they log in or even have an account with Google. Using Google Search without logging in tags you for two years, and that unique tag is sent over the network every time you search even if it’s on a different network (or in a different country).

Alarming information about just how frequently law enforcement officials across the country (not to mention the NSA) are trying to get cell phone data, including your location, seem to be published in the news media every day. With these privacy concerns in mind, last week we filed an amicus brief in the Connecticut Appellate Court in State v. Smith, urging it to find the state police violated the Fourth Amendment when it obtained cell tower records without a search warrant.

An article yesterday in the Washington Post disclosed the NSA's massive cell phone location program. The program, codenamed CO-TRAVELER, is designed to track who meets with whom and covers everyone who carries a cell phone, all around the world.

With neither public debate nor court authorization, CO-TRAVELER collects billions of records daily of cell phone user location information. It maps the relationships of cell phone users across global mobile network cables, gathering data about who you are physically with and how often your movements intersect with other cell phone users. The program even tracks when your phone is turned on or off.